A comparison of Thomas Hobbes and John Locke’s main ideas, the extent to which their thinking can be applied to political thought today and the possible significance it has.

There have been numerous great thinkers across the expanse of modern civilisation with countless different subjects at the centre of their thinking, many of these thinkers, directly or indirectly, have had an affect or have inspired change towards political thought.

Political thought finds its foundations in ancient Greece and its city states, notably Athens, and the many different political structures employed and developed by them. Prominent thinkers from these times such as Plato and Aristotle and their books The Republic and Politics respectively, were some of the first minds to shape, debate and disagree about political ideas and have observably influenced one great mind after another.

It quickly came to light the importance and magnitude political thinking had, and undoubtedly would have, on the world for, likely, the rest of civilised existence. Later prominent thinkers include names such as N. Machiavelli who was around during the European Renaissance period and, in his works The Prince (1513)and The Discourses on Livy (1517), put forward a lot of ideas particularly regarding how to gain then maintain power and the benefits of a republic society. J.J. Rousseau, J. Locke and T. Hobbes did much for the development of ideas about the social contract with work on how and why humans left the “state of nature” and formed societies and the implications of them doing so and what the ideal state would be.

Karl Marx was a more contemporary political theorist who’s works The Communist Manifesto and Das Kapital described how modern society, especially capitalism, was the result of class struggle through history and he is often labelled the ‘father of communism’. All these great thinkers across time have had ideas and put forward theories that developed political thinking in their times, but how far their ideas can be extrapolated on to how we think about politics now raises issues.

To look at the question of if and how we can learn from political thinkers from earlier eras and their different approaches to political thought I will be using Thomas Hobbes and John Locke as examples. I will look at some of their main political ideas, any similarities or disparities that arise between these ideas and to what extent they can be applied to an issue in today’s world.

Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) was an Oxford educated English philosopher who was influential in a range of academic spheres, including philosophy, history, geometry, theology, ethics, and most importantly for us, politics. His most important works concerning political thought are De Cive (1642) and Leviathan (1651). John Locke (1632-1704) was also and English philosopher and was also Oxford educated.

Whilst at Oxford he showed less interest in the classical philosophers such as Aristotle and much preferred the ideas of the more contemporary philosophers to his time such as Descartes. He also showed great interest in medicine studying it extensively during his time at Oxford and after he had attained his original bachelor’s and then master’s degree he gained a bachelor’s degree in medicine. Locke’s works The Two Treatises of Government (1689), A Letter Concerning Toleration (1689)and Treatise on Civil Government (1690) stand out as significant in terms of political thought.

One of the fundamental differences between Hobbes and Locke is their views on man, his actions whilst in and his departure from the state of nature. Hobbes first suggested the state of nature in his book Leviathan and believed that during this time when, “men live without a common power to keep them all in awe” (Ch.13), man experiences continual fear, the danger of violence and death, living a life “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.” (Ch. 13). In De Cive he uses the Latin phrase “Bellum omnium contra omnes”, meaning "the war of all against all", to describe it.In his Second Treatise on Civil Government Locke considers the state of nature and in contrast to Hobbes sees it to be a peaceful, good, and pleasant time in which, although sometimes insecure, men keep their promises and honour their obligations.

Hobbes says that Because men are all equal, physically but not morally, they all have the right of nature, which is, according to Hobbes: the liberty each man has to use his own power, as he will himself, for the preservation of his own nature; that is to say, of his own life a desire to survive, this justifies violence against any other in order to survive. As well as this men also possess to some extent the capacity to reason.

This combination, Hobbes said, would lead to a social contract in which there is a formation of a civil society as a balance between these competing, destructive forces. The reasoning behind this is, because of the validation of violence against others for survival it is beneficial for personal survival if man agrees to renounce their right to said violence. Nonetheless, this only produces a nervous and unstable equilibrium that relies on every member upholding their promise.

The remedy Hobbes gives for this is the agreement that a sovereign who possesses absolute power of authority, a Leviathan, becomes part of their social contract. This Leviathan, or the State, is granted this absolute authority in return for it using said power to sustain a state of peace. According to Hobbes the State, whatever its form, is, by definition, always right, as long as it is able to maintain civil peace.

Locke believes that in the state of nature there is no law but men are subject to moral law which is the law of God. Man is born with his freedom, is equal in rights and innately identifies what is right and wrong, and has the capacity to discern what is lawful and unlawful adequately enough. In particular, and most importantly, man is capable of discerning between property belonging to him and property belonging to someone else; unfortunately man does not always follow this knowledge.

With this in mind, Locke says of property that whatever a man mixes his labour with is his to use, this though could only be said of the earlier humans in the state of nature who had plenty to go around. Once populations have expanded and sources have become limited, the set of laws provided by nature is surpassed and laws beyond these are required.

The combination of these two situations is from where civil society originates, man signs the figurative social contract and in doing so gives up his right to resolve conflicts exact retribution himself whilst gaining the right to life, liberty and property through just, impartial protection from the sovereign.

Hobbes deems the existence of a sovereign pointless unless they have absolute power, only once this has happened and it has legislated civil laws, he says, does a civil society exist. In his justification for absolute power Hobbes argues 'Because human beings are unable to establish any substantial co-operation among themselves and, in particular, are unable to agree on any rules of private property, no law or set of laws can be the final decider in a political regime.

And this means that a human being or an assembly of human beings must act in this capacity'. This essentially means that because man by himself cannot justly settle disputes without unrest amongst others a higher, ultimate, authority must exist to govern. If it is assumed that every member of the state has agreed to enter into the social contract then they have given the power to the sovereign to resolve conflicts, but if the power of this sovereign was not absolute then it leaves the sovereign’s judgment and punishment are open to question and therefore its role is redundant and man finds himself back in the state of nature.

Locke says that the entire and only reason for the state is to justly protect man’s natural rights to life, liberty and property. If a ruler seeks absolute power acting as both judge and a party in disputes or repeatedly infringes upon mans three natural rights it puts them in a state of war with their subjects and therefore back into the state of nature and, according to Locke, it is now the mans right to resist or rebel against the ruler. There are, however, four conditions in which rebellion is justified by Locke which are mentioned by Von Leydon (1982),

‘First, resistance must come from a community as a whole, not from any individual members of particular groups among them…Secondly, men are free to resort to force, ‘whenever they judge the Cause of sufficient moment’…The third condition Locke specifies is that each individual no less than the whole of mankind dispose of the ultimate determination ‘to judge whether they have just Cause to make their Appeal to Heaven’…Locke’s fourth condition is that he who resorts to force ‘ must be sure he has Right on his side’ (p.185)

In the modern political environment there have been numerous different issues in which Hobbes and Locke’s political theories are relevant and can be applied. In some cases their ideas have broken down and criticisms arisen which has rendered them outmoded but some of their ideas remain strong and can be usefully related to contemporary issues. Locke’s idea of man’s natural right to Life, Liberty and Property is still very much alive and is seen in many of today’s societies, especially places such as the U.K. and the U.S., as the basis for freedom and the primary role of the state is to protect said rights.

Sometimes, however, the state has infringed upon these rights and occasionally it has been, in some people’s view, to such a large extent that there is an argument for resistance. A recent example of this would be the recent loss of a huge amount personal data by the British Government. The data contained highly confidential information such as bank account details and personal family details which could easily be used for such things as identity theft, this breach of trust violates mans right to Liberty and could result in an infringement of mans right to Property.

On the Guardian Unlimited website it was said by Conservative leader David Cameron to be part of, ‘A renewed assault on our liberty’. Hobbes idea of absolute power has also been raised in current issues with the recently deceased, totalitarian leader of Turkmenistan. Saparmurat Niyazov. He did have absolute power of the citizens of his country and, although he provided the country with numerous vastly expensive luxuries such as huge gold statues (of himself may I add) and giant marble palaces the standard of their lives was extremely poor and the state of the health service was said to be worse than even that of the poorest ex-soviet countries. This totalitarian state which could be said to be based upon some of Hobbes political ideas has gone a long way to voiding Hobbes justification of an absolute sovereign.

It is clear that although some of Hobbes and Locke’s ideas have become outdated and irrelevant in terms of modern political thought. Others, as we have seen, are still very relevant and form an important foundation across numerous societies. Not only do their specific ideas have relevance today but the way in which they approached political and philosophical thought also does. The fact they were academic thinkers across a range of subjects, I believe, can only enrich their critical thinking and this should be reflected more so in today’s education.

Bibliography

Anon. (2007) Cameron slams 'enemies of freedom'. Guardian, Saturday November 24th. Press Association [Accessed 245th November 2007].

Hobbes, T. (2004) De Cive. Whitefish, Kessinger Publishing.

Hobbes, T. Ed. Thomas, S. (2007) Leviathan. Adelaide, eBooks@Adelaide. Available from: http://etext.library.adelaide.edu.au/h/hobbes/thomas/h68l/ [Accessed 20th November 2007]

Locke, J. (1965) Treatise of Civil Government and a Letter Concerning Toleration. New York, Irvington Publishers.

Locke, J. (1980) Second Treatise of Government. Indianapolis, Hackett Publishing.

Locke, J. (1988) Two Treatises of Government. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.

McNeilly, F.S. (1968) The Anatomy of Leviathan. New York, St. Martin’s Press.

Morrow, J. (2005) History of Western Political Thought. 2^nd edition. Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan.

O’Connor, D.J. (1967) John Locke. New York, Dover Publications.

Von Leydon, W. (1982) Hobbes and Locke: The Politics of Freedom and Obligation. London, Macmillan Press.

Yolton, J.W. (1993) A Locke Dictionary. Oxford, Blackwell Publishers.